'Ghost light' makes him a believer

Stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., after World War II, I spent weekends in nearby Wilmington.

It was there I heard about a "ghost light" said to appear nightly near Maco, about 15 miles west of Wilmington.

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Stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., after World War II, I spent weekends in nearby Wilmington.

It was there I heard about a "ghost light" said to appear nightly near Maco, about 15 miles west of Wilmington.

The explanation was that Joe Baldwin, a trainman on the Wilmington-Florence-Augusta railroad line (now the Atlantic Coast Line), had been killed in a wreck in 1867 -- and his head was never found.

The light supposedly was Joe looking for his head.

One rainy night, after getting detailed directions to the area, several of my Marine buddies and I decided to check out the ghost story.

Approaching Maco on a narrow two-lane road, we turned onto a small dirt road; 100 yards later, in dense, piney woods, we found a single railroad track.

We crossed the track, turned the car around so we were facing the track, then parked beside an old cemetery. We got out of the car and stood over the track.

About a minute later, a small ball of fire seemed to bounce out of the woods, stopping over the track about 5 feet above the ground. The light, about 50 yards away, began moving back and forth as if it were a lantern being swung.

The light slowly came toward us, sparks flying from the top. When it reached about 30 yards away, it disappeared.

As we turned around to go back to the car, the flickering "lantern" appeared behind us, proceeding down the track until it disappeared behind a large train headlight. A train never appeared.

During the next two years, we returned to Maco several times. We always experienced the light in much the same way.

In 1956 -- by then I had married -- my wife and I were near Wilmington, so we decided to see whether the light was still there. We drove down the dirt road, crossed the track and turned around. While still in the car, we saw a light directly in front of us; we could clearly see the shape of a lantern and the sparks.

I was so surprised that I neglected to turn on the headlights -- which might have given us more information on exactly what we were seeing.

A few seconds later, the light started swinging back and forth, then slowly moved down the track, gaining speed until it disappeared. In its place down the track was a train headlight. As before, there was no train.

When we returned to our home in Mansfield, we told people about the ghost light -- which prompted a relative to buy us a book on railroad lore.

Sure enough, the story was in there: It referred to Joe Baldwin, a railroad conductor, who was assigned to the last car in the train.

On a rainy night in the spring of 1867, the book said, the train was headed into Maco when Joe's car started slowing down. The car had become uncoupled from the rest of the train.

At the rear of his car, Joe saw the next train heading toward him, so he frantically waved his lantern to signal it -- to no avail. Joe was caught between the two trains; his head was severed and never found.

He was the only person to die in the accident.

Shortly after, the ghost light appeared.

The Oct. 28, 1957, issue of Life magazine featured an article about U.S. ghosts -- including the story of Joe Baldwin and a photograph of the light.

In 1966, my wife and I returned to the Wilmington area with our young son and daughter. When we arrived at the track, several other cars were there. People were walking up and down the track.

In time, the light appeared as before, moving down the track, disappearing and then showing up behind us until it gave way to the train light.

The last time we visited Maco, in 1998, we struggled to find the area. By then, the landscape had changed drastically: The road had been widened, the woods were gone, and a housing development was under construction.

We stopped to talk to a man in the general vicinity. He told us that the track had been removed in 1977.